Typically, patient monitors include alarm systems that provide audible and/or visual indications of certain predefined conditions—i.e., alarm conditions. For example, some patient monitors include alarms that are triggered based on physiological conditions, such as high or low heart rate thresholds, blood pressure thresholds, arterial oxyhemoglobin saturation, etc. These alarms facilitate supervision of patients and improve patient care by providing caregivers with warnings concerning certain monitored conditions.
Alarm notifications may be auditory and/or visual, and may be local alarms and/or transmitted via a notification system. For example, alarms may be sent to a central management station, such as a nurses' station, either at the time an alarm condition occurs, or after a certain amount of time has passed while the alarm condition remains unacknowledged. Additionally, alarms may be sent to wireless devices, such as pagers, carried by caregivers to give notice of an alarm condition.
In fast-paced healthcare environments, such as an emergency room, a coronary care unit, an intensive care unit, or any other hospital unit, current audible and/or visual indications of alarm conditions can go unnoticed or be difficult to locate. Further, clinicians may be located in the facility remote from the central management station, or otherwise fail to respond to a notice of an alarm condition. In such instances, an alarm condition may not be heeded. Additionally, in patient care units where patients are ambulatory, a patient suffering an alarm condition may be difficult to locate quickly. Time spent trying to locate the patient or determine the nature of the alarm condition extends the response time to the alarm condition and may reduce the overall quality of patient care.